Can you have multiple .net Consoles (as in Console.Writeline)

Question

It would be handy during debugging to have multiple consoles (not multiple monitors, which I already have). I am imagining something like Console.WriteLine(1, String1) which would send String1 to one console window 1 and Console.WriteLine(2, String2) which would send String2 to console window 2.

Answer 1

Nope

A process can be associated with only one console, so the AllocConsole function fails if the calling process already has a console. A process can use the FreeConsole function to detach itself from its current console, then it can call AllocConsole to create a new console or AttachConsole to attach to another console.

[http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms681944(VS.85).aspx](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms681944(VS.85).aspx)

Instead you can use WinForms or WPF to create multiple "console" windows and write a simple WriteLine method to append text to a text box or similar.

Another option is to open a log file, and use that as your second "console".

Answer 2

Is it possible to have 2 Windows Consoles in the same application?

No. The Console class is just a very thin wrapper around the Win32 idea of a console. Essentially everything you see when you use cmd.exe. There is no way to create 2 of these in a single process.

Could I have 2 Console-like windows?

Yes. It would be possible to essentially build a very console like class in WPF or WinForms. Use that to spit out text to a command line like application.